


been about three days

by plinys



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Beach House Verse, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-12
Updated: 2017-06-12
Packaged: 2018-11-13 11:19:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11184039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plinys/pseuds/plinys
Summary: “How do I turn on sleep mode?”





	been about three days

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dearingsattler](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dearingsattler/gifts).



> All these beach house fics take place in the same verse, if you haven't read the others, Fitz chose to stay at the beach house with Ophelia over the rest of the team and they're working on things.
> 
> For dearingsattler, and a fic swap I am way late on

He wakes in the middle of the night with a jolt. 

Gasping, struggling to breathe, struggling to remember where he was.

It comes to him a moment later. 

The leather couch sticking to the back of his sweat damp legs, the blanket he’d taken from the bed tangled and long since knocked onto the floor, the brush of cool ocean air washing over him through the window he had opened just before going to sleep.

He’s at the beach house.

Not at the Playground, in the small room that had reminded him of the dorm rooms at the academy.

Not in the Hydra penthouse, with the lights of a city that belonged to him streaming in front the windows.

Just here with - 

“Leopold,” her voice cuts through the stillness of the beach house. Through the sound of the waves hitting the shore just outside their open window. Through the sound of his own heart beating heavy and loud in his chest.

This not the first night he’s woken up with a nightmare.

Probably not the last.

It’s been the same way for the past two nights. Why he had thought tonight would be any different was a mystery?

At least this time Ophelia isn’t standing over him, looming like a figure in the dark that he cannot even begin to handle so soon after waking. She’s kept her distance this time, something that a part of him is thankful for, while another part of him yearns for her touch in these desperate moments. 

Especially when his nightmares were about her.

About  _ losing  _ her. 

“Leopold,” she prompts again.

This time he responds sitting up on the couch to say, “I’m fine.” 

He can see her sitting on the edge of the bed. The open floor plan of the beach house, making the apartment feel more like a studio than the penthouse it had been back inside the Framework. She’s watching him, and when he tilts his head to the side she mimics the motion. 

From a scientist's point of view it’s fascinating.

From the point of view of someone that just wants to sleep it’s not so much. 

“Another nightmare?” 

“Yes,” he admits, “They should stop soon.”

Hopefully. 

“I’m just going to go back to sleep-”

“How do you do it?” 

Her question stops him from laying back down like he had planned. 

She’s been doing that a lot, the past few days he’s been here, asking him questions that didn’t make sense. 

“Fall asleep after a nightmare? Well, generally, I just try not to think about it and-”

“No,” Ophelia cuts him off. “How do I turn on sleep mode?”

_ Sleep mode. _

There were times when he was so abruptly reminded that up until a few days ago she hadn’t been human. 

He thought she had understand how to be human, certainly she had mimicked being one inside the Framework with ease. But then again, he remembers even then how that version of him - the other  _ him  _ \- had been bothered by the way she had slept, lying still like a corpse never moving.

In the Framework he had thought it odd, but never asked. Now though he can see it all clearly.

Sleep mode.

Just like when Radcliffe would turn her off and - 

“Ophelia, are you saying you haven’t slept since you became-” he stops, changes his wording, careful around the still sensitive subject of her humanity, “Since you got here.”

“Well, I was turned off when Agent Simmons hit us with the ICER, but otherwise… I have not been able to activate sleep mode.”

They were really going to have to work on phrasing.

Things normal humans did and did not say. 

He should probably make a list.

“You can’t sleep?”

“I have tried,” she insists, sounding so earnest. “I have laid here like we used to before but it won’t turn off.”

The  _ I won’t turn off  _ is implied. 

It softens something in him, a momentary feeling, concern. He’s concerned for her. He hadn’t known he was fully capable of that feeling anymore up until this moment.

“Alright, let’s see then, what's different?”

It seemed like a silly question the second he said it. 

What was different? 

Everything. 

They were in a different world, in a home similar and yet drastically different from the one they had before.

They were different people - he a mix of the man he was in this world and the one he was in that, whereas she was now a  _ human  _ with real emotions not simulated ones. 

They were -

“You're not beside me.”

Of all the answers he had considered possible that was not what one of them. 

Yet, it suddenly seems so obvious.

They had always slept together in the other world, had done so for what felt like  _ years _ . 

“Ophelia, I-”

“I know,” she insists, “You feel more comfortable there. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to suggest it. I'll go take a walk, give you some space to fall back asleep.”

“No,” he says quickly. Stopping her, so that she seems to linger there, just at the edge of the bed.

Hesitant. 

This time he is the one that stands up. Leaving the comfort and relative distance of the couch behind to cross over to where she is and to sit on edge of the bed beside her. She leans against him ever so slightly, their shoulders touching, an instinctive movement. 

He had not known he was craving that contact until she was there.

“Leopold?”

“You need your rest,” he insists. 

“I don't know how,” she says again, the struggle and confusion so evident in her voice. 

He’s not sure if it will make a difference, sleeping in a bed, sleeping  _ beside  _ her - if anything there was a chance it would make his nightmares worse, but the part of him that still knew Ophelia better than anyone else. The part of him that has loved this woman for ten years, and aches at the honest confusion and pain in her voice. It’s that part that inspires him to push forward. 

She needs to rest, she needs to relax, and if laying beside her will offer that comfort he’s willing to try. 

If it comforts him as well then… That’s just muscle memory.

When he lays down on the bed it feels familiar. They have done this before, in another world, in another life. Sharing a bed with someone is second nature by now. Sharing a bed with her. 

She hesitates only a moment before joining him. 

This feels right.

He's not sure exactly if it is.

Not sure exactly what all of this means, where they stand. It hasn't been long enough to figure that out. But he offers his arm for Ophelia to lay against him, runs his hand through her hair in a soothing manner, and presses the lightest barely there ghost of a kiss against her forehead.

It's something.

It's progress.

“Good night, Leopold,” she whispers barely there. So quiet he almost misses it. 

“Good night, Ophelia.” 


End file.
